It's certainly an exciting opportunity when you think about putting your online business together and being able to hire out your digital team. However, if you make these mistakes early on in the process, you could end up kicking yourself down the road and finding that you are extremely frustrated. This is why you need to avoid the mistakes outlined below, so as to have a comprehensive and trustworthy digital team.

Failing to Interview Candidates

You can learn a lot about a person by simply jumping on the phone with them and getting a sense of their personality. It is not only important to choose someone who has the right background, but also somebody who is knowledgeable about your industry or who has experience with the tools you use. It is even more important to conduct an interview in the event that this person will be serving in a client-facing role in your individual business. Hiring someone who does not have a personality that communicates well with yours or who struggles to understand the instructions that you give, could lead to more frustration, missed deadlines, and numerous mistakes. If you have to go back and fix a lot of mistakes or walk somebody through the process, holding their hand, this can be very frustrating and a poor use of your time.

Not Giving Someone Clear Hours Within Which to Do the Work

In the event that you are working with someone on a large project, always get an upfront quote first or give them an idea of the amount of time that you expect for the project to take. This is the only way to feel confident that someone will not go over his or her allotted hours. You may find, for example, that if you give someone a task that you expect will take an hour, but don’t share this with them, that they come back with an invoice for 10 hours’ worth of work. This is because some people are nervous about the quality of their work and will tend to go above and beyond in an attempt to exceed your expectations. However, the only thing this probably exceeds is your budget. This is why you should get an idea upfront of what is realistic for the digital team member you are expecting, particularly in the event that he or she is working on an hourly contract. It can be an unpleasant surprise to discover that someone does not work as quickly as you do and it can also cost you big time when you need to go ahead and pay that invoice anyways.

Not Asking the Person About Their Mistakes

Many people put their best foot forward in an online job interview or in a version of their resume. This is strongly recommended. In fact, it is probably the only reason that you took a look at this person to begin with. However, a person's digital presentation of themselves is not the full story. There are two primary ways to get the full story about somebody's background. The first is to ask for references from other individuals who have worked with this person. Another way to accomplish this goal is to ask, during the interview process, about a time in which this team member failed. You will learn a lot about how this person copes with failure and adjust as a result. Make sure you dig in for specific details so that you do not receive a glossed over answer with someone who is not actually sharing as much information as possible with you about his or her failures.

All of these tips can help you build an effective digital team. You need to plan ahead and make sure that you communicate properly and identify the right people to begin with to avoid a great deal of aggravation.

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